In recent days, the U.S. Department of Justice has served upwards of 40 subpoenas on people affiliated with Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign, many of whom continue to associate with or support him.
The reports were first aired by Steven Bannon, and confirmed at least in part by attorney Harmeet Dhillon:
The NY Times and other mainstream media have confirmed (with glee) the large number of subpoenas, including phone seizures:
Justice Department officials have seized the phones of two top advisers to former President Donald J. Trump and blanketed his aides with about 40 subpoenas in a substantial escalation of the investigation into his efforts to subvert the 2020 election, people familiar with the inquiry said on Monday.
The seizure of the phones, coupled with a widening effort to obtain information from those around Mr. Trump after the 2020 election, represent some of the most aggressive steps the department has taken thus far in its criminal investigation into the actions that led to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.
The subpoenas themselves are extraordinarily broad, seeking communications with dozens of people. So one subpoena to one person actually implicates dozens of people. Redstate published one of the subpoenas, along with the threatening cover letter:
Here’s what was demanded per Nick Arama at RedState:
Assume, for the sake of argument only, that such subpoenas were proper and necessary to investigate alleged crimes associated with the January 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riot. That’s a big assumption, but it proves the point, which is why now, some 18 months later?
If these subpoenas were so necessary to the investigation, why did DOJ/FBI wait a year and half until we are in the thick of the runup to the midterms?
These subpoenas are a big freeze not only on Trumpworld, but conservative and Republican worlds. When people know that dozens are being subpoenaed by the feds regarding hundreds of people or entities, people stop talking to each other and engaging in perfectly lawful political activity out of fear that they will be next. Lawful political communication with the wrong person could find you on the receiving end of a DOJ subpoena and FBI home visit, or as just happend to Mike Lindell and others, being confronted on the street or in public by FBI agents.
It’s a way to shut down a political movement without having to arrest, indict, or prosecute anyone.
We have seen this tactic before, in the 2013-2014 “John Doe” investigation in Wisconsin where a Democrat prosecutor froze almost the entire Wisconsin conservative movement through subpoenas and police raids to obtain documents and electronics. We covered the John Doe investigation tactics and impact extensively, including in this summary post, Exposed: How Prosecutors targeted Scott Walker and conservatives.
(note: Michael Lutz in this interview from late April 2015 committed suicide in late July 2015).
The Wisconsin Supreme Court eventually shut down the investigation, and later legislation changed the law to stop future abuses, but not before the damage was done. I discused the tactics and impact in this interview:
What happened in the John Doe abuses in Wisconsin was a trial run for what DOJ/FBI are doing now. It’s an attempt to freeze the political movement opposing the Biden administration and Democrats.
What DOJ and FBI are doing in the runup to the 2022 midterms is not legitimate. It’s election interference. If Trumpworld and conservative world and Republican world legitimately were deserving of carpet-bombed subpoenas, it would have been done a year ago, not now.
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